Today is the day Nigerian-British bass player Michael Olatuja unfurls his very first album Speak onto the world, but this isn’t the kind of record you’d might expect from a master bassist his first time out. But Olatuja is not an orthodox musician. If he was, I’d most likely wouldRead More

There are some lines of business where the odds are stacked heavily against you if you decide to go into it. The restaurant biz is notorious for a high failure rate, for instance. The same could be saying about starting an independent record label; they come and go in massiveRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Chris Potter has long been one of my favorite saxophonists simply by virtue of playing in a couple of my favorite bands. As a former long-time member of The Dave Holland Quintet and the reconstituted Steely Dan, Potter made his name while in his twenties withRead More

by Nick DeRiso Violinist Mark O’Connor continues one of the most fascinating, brilliantly original re-imaginings of classical music in our time with “Nos. 2 and 3.” He works not in the dusty pages of the familiar, but in a refreshing vernacular — and, along the way, imbues this OMAC RecordsRead More

An uber-talented young gal from Oregon with a fresh, delightful debut record that brings back to life classic American music of prior generations. That’s what I said in a nutshell about Diane Birch’s Bible Belt, but this time, the buzz is about Hailey Niswanger. Ms. Niswanger (pronounced NICE-wonger) plies herRead More

It’s a classically American record by an American who was an expatriate for half of her young life. Being the daughter of a globe trotting missionary didn’t give Diana Birch a first hand indoctrination to American culture the way most Americans get it, but she was always a quick studyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Know any good music in Baltimore? I do. The city that has spawned or raised such diverse, quirky talents such as Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa and David Byrne is currently the home to a new one: Quartet Offensive. Formed just two years ago, Quartet Offensive playsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Brooklyn-born Steve Kuhn has not only enjoyed a long and fruitful career as a pianist of acclaim, but an interesting one as well. He studied classical piano under Margaret Chaloff, who also educated other jazz pianist luminaries like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett. At thirteen, heRead More

For Brazilian guitarist Guilherme Monteiro, this was his first album — but looking at his long list of accomplishments tells you already that there’s nothing rookie about it. Having studied at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance and plied his trade in NYC since 2000, Monteiro has worked withRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The highly versatile drummer Matt Wilson has made a name as a leader of bands that straddled the fence between post-bop and avant garde with other music forms tossed in for grins ever since his headliner debut As Wave Follows Wave, which featured tenor sax veteranRead More